Persephone Emerald

The hole in the smaller section goes down Alice-in-Wonderland-like to my reBourne skybox, with a modified 2-story Apple Fall New York Apartment skybox in it. The larger area is for rezzing large objects and checking run animations.

^ This is the solution. I see that hair halo all the time when my avatars are standing in front of the semi-transparent wall of my sky platform (trees with transparent sky above them). I only need to right click on the background wall to make it disappear.

I usually send my avatars home before putting my RL self to bed. I don't even have a bed out for them currently, though I have put one or the other to bed when I had a new bed for them. If they have been standing by some lucky boards or recently gone into a space that was hard to get into, I may leave them there on purpose, so when they rez in next time they will be right where that lucky board or sale item is.

I'd like fewer events, but as was said above, let the free market sort it out. It helps to have a list of YouTubers who review events and then watch their videos before deciding if you want to spend time at another event or not.

Look what happened to the avatars in Sansar when the folks from Linden Lab were controlling the standard there. https://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/atate/2019/09/04/sansar-with-avatar-2-0/

In RL, someone *could* buy an expensive designer outfit and then ruin it by dying it a different color. In SL one simply needs to tint a modifiable item to see for themselves if that would ruin it or not, and if it does ruin said item, they can untint it. If they change the texture and thus ruin it, well then they should have had enough sense to make a copy first, or maybe they'll be lucky and have a redelivery option. I believe customers should be allowed to make mistakes so they can learn from them and so they can appreciate the work the creator has put into making that item. I'm all for allowing *most* items to be modifiable, but not scripts, because once a person can view a script, they can copy and resell it ad infinitum. When one is about to buy something relatively expensive in SL, look for the permissions and try a demo. If that doesn't work for you, then you have one less shop to shop in, but there are plenty more to choose from in SL.

I actually take exception to your use of the term "bored and wealthy elderly housewives". I don't think you actually understand this demographic that dominates SL. I think RL women are the biggest spenders of money in SL, as well as the majority of SL creators/merchants. As such, we drive the SL economy to a large extent and shouldn't be trivialized. The RL women of SL come from a wide range of ages, from collage age to working age to retired, and I don't think many of us are actually wealthy by US standards, but more often middle-class. We're wealthy enough to afford a a decent computer and internet access, but not wealthy enough to be able to afford servants or even going out to expensive restaurants all the time. Second Life lets middle-aged, middle class women relive their youth in the form of sexy avatars with nearly unlimited access to new clothes and etc., but free of all the social messiness of real life. For what we would spend for one outfit or one trip to the beauty parlor in RL, we can enjoy this fantasy world for months in SL. Those who have the talent and drive for it, have harnessed our fantasies to make their own RL money, as well as to exercise creative drives that may have been limited in their RL jobs. Some people will always be content to repost gifs of kittens on Facebook, but for those who want a bit more, there is SL.

^ I love this post too. This is basically how I see my alts too, they are sides of myself that I use when I don't want to be bothered or when I'm feeling not quite like my "normal", regular self.

Alycia and I have had some trying times with each other, but I think she knows that I do sincerely care about her and wish her the best in her virtual life. I've tried to make up for giving her such a horrible creation story by giving her a lovely new look and all the clothes and things she's really wants. I tried giving her a cat once, but she got bored with it. When I had a big house, I gave her her own bedroom. I think she wants one again now, so I'm thinking of giving her a small skybox apartment of her own. Once she has a place of her own, she never uses it though. She says she doesn't actually sleep like we First Life people do, but rather just fades out to blackness and then reappears again later with a vague dream-like memory of what I've been doing and thinking. This is how we communicate with each other most of the time, though sometimes we also send IMs to each other, like Post-It Notes left on the refrigerator door between housemates with opposite schedules. Evan is very agreeable and actually rather boring, truth be told. But he's an all around good guy who actually likes helping people, even if he doesn't advertise that fact. We don't talk much, but I do give him money for shopping and updating his look from time to time. Tasha is a darling who never asks for anything and is always sweet and cheerful. She loves being a wolf, but also enjoys dressing up as a human now and then, to see what it's like to be one of us.

^ I love this post. ❤️

The simple answer to most of your questions here is *money*. Every business needs to be profitable in order to survive. I'd say being profitable should be the # 2 priority of every business after the #1 priority of being safe an legal - so they don't get shut down by regulators. # 3 might be to be ethical, but ethics are a tricky area sometimes. Being innovative or customer focused is great, but mean nothing if the company gets shut down for lack of funds or legal problems. Thus Linden Lab has continued with a clumsy, glitchy platform because they rightfully loathe the idea of breaking existing content and losing many of the paying users they already have. I think it will take a surgeon's touch to excise the buggy parts of SL, rather than a butcher's chop. In the meantime, those "bored and wealthy elderly housewives" are keeping SL profitable and alive.

I think it's more likely because he will not be an *employee* of Linden Lab, but rather an independent consultant.

^ This is great to know. Now I can delete my Catwa Freya head, old Catwa skins & makeup, and just keep my Queen HDPRO head, skins & makeup. I'm using LeLutka Evo now, but I like to keep a few other heads & skins just in case. Any new knowledge that helps me reduce my Inventory is good. 🙂

No. My alts are more like characters I've created for a story that plays out in my imagination.

According to what he said on this video, he'd rather use his old avatar and he won't be using Linden as his last name.

My alts: Evan wearing the Lelutka Logan head and Alycia wearing the LeLutka Lily head.

There are times in RL when we have less privacy than we'd like to think too, so in these situations we also continue the pretense of privacy. I've worked in a job where there were cameras in most of the work areas (pharmaceutical production), but one ignores them after awhile for the post part. Employers can sometimes read our emails or even track our keystrokes on work computers, yet we still use the computers for non-work communications. One does not comment on another person's bathroom noises or on their overheard phone conversations. I currently live with 2 housemates in RL, so any of us could snoop into another person's bedroom, but social convention requires that we don't. I once had a roommate who would look over my landlady's shoulder when she was dressing her avatar or on a date in SL and comment on her avatar's appearance, like saying she looked hot! -- In SL and RL there are always some people who either don't understand social conventions or who choose to ignore them.

There is a parcel next to mine that allows rezzing. It's has a pretty little Japanese style teahouse on it, but I never see the owner online or doing anything with it. I rezzed a few trees on it, to pull it's landscaping in with my own woods. I know what you mean about griefers using rezzable land for dropping griefing objects, but I also like that random people can use this teahouse to rez packages and dress if they wish, so I don't want to use up all of my neighbor's unused prims.

In case people are not aware of it, there are a series of videos by a couple of gamers who are benignly messing around in SL to see how weird it can be, beginning with this very popular YouTube video. I think our ability to goof around and have fun in SL is essential to keeping people using this platform, and that as long-term users we may at times forget how much fun SL can be. It's not just a platform for dressing up our avatars, meeting virtual romantic partners, or doing serious roleplay. Its physics engine and our ability to manipulate prims and our avatars are also alot of fun to play with. I think we may also forget how much fun newbies have with elements we now find annoying, such as using gestures or tricking unsuspecting people. I want us to all remember that we were young and foolish once too, and far from ruining our SL experience, those stupid or silly things we did were a large part why we kept coming back to SL.

I think that online and in social media generally people put themselves at risk by exposing their RL name, location, job information and personal details. I don't do those "fun" questionnaires that ask random questions to give your fictional name or lump you into some kind of category, because your pet's name or the street you grew up on could be security questions somewhere. I generally avoid using my RL name or picture online or in SL, though I don't mind telling people what city I live in because it's a big city and I have a common first name, so it would be hard to identity me with just that information. I like to profile myself with my SL profile and like to look at other people's to figure out something of what they're like. If someone doesn't fill out their profile at all I assume they're either not smart enough, too boring, or too paranoid to warrant my further attention. If they happen to have an interesting conversation with me, then I'll re-evaluate my view of them. I don't mind being cammed on and do cam on other people sometimes, but I figure as long as nobody says anything about it, then it didn't happen. I do think it's extremely rude to cam on someone while their avatar is naked or dressing and then IM them to say they look hot or whatever. Because we don't have real privacy for our avatars in SL, I think this requires of us the social nicety of pretending that we have such privacy.

I have an ex boyfriend in SL who I'm still friends with. At one time he kept rezzing onto my land and just standing there. I think he may have been using a mobile viewer or maybe his wifi connection was just really bad. I got tired of him just standing around on my land, so I set my scripted dog to push him off the parcel. He didn't complain, but it was funny to watch him get pushed. Another time when I was still dating him but was annoyed with him, I modified a freebie noob mannequin to look like a vampire (because he was into one of those vampire pyramid scheme games), then used a pumpkin catapult to shoot pumpkins at it. I also shot pumpkins at some exploding noob mannequins. This was all on group land and didn't bother any one else, so it wasn't really griefing. One of my best tricks for people who grief me or bother me with unwelcomed proposition's though is an object I received with the name of "Scarf". I changed it's name to friendly little monster, because when worn, it animates like it's having sex with the avatar.

^ I love this last one most of all. It reminds me of how I will sometimes do the Twisted Hunt dressed as one of the cubes, then sit there and wait for someone to Touch me. It's best when the cube is scripted to break or say things, but it confuses the hunters either way.

Reading this article made me think of this question: https://www.thegamer.com/facebook-metaverse-second-life/ For some this may not be a secret wish, but I suspect that for many of us old-timers we would secretly love to act as silly and unaware of SL social rules as we used to do. My all-time favorite activity that is not entirely socially acceptable is making objects physical and then dropping them from a great height. A semi-transparent sphere encompassing an avatar is the best, especially if it's set to having Rubber physics. You can roll off a platform, bounce when you hit the ground, then roll into another person's property or into linden water. Walk inside this sphere, and you'll feel like you're inside a giant hamster ball. I once accidentally made a giant sky platform physical and dropped it into a the goth club neighboring my mainland property. I apologized and removed it ASAP, but it was still funny to see it slicing through the gothic cathedral next door. I also made use of this physics trick when an SL soon-to-be ex "borrowed" a substantial amount of RL money that he looked like he might not be willing to pay back to me. I made over a hundred Easter eggs with prizes inside, all physical and sitting on a sky platform. Then I deleted the platform and let them fall. Users of our sandbox sim found brightly colored Easter eggs all over the sim with gifts inside, but these eggs were also named things like "Snake", "Weasel", "Jerk", & etc. as a sign to this soon-to-be ex that I was not above hurting his reputation with our group members if he failed to return my money. In the end, I was one of the few (or possibly the only) person whom he paid back before abandoning the sim and moving on to greener pastures. Even in a big public sandbox, it's fun to make some giant physical rubber shapes, drop them, and see how they bounce and roll.

Nobody else can see your notes. I sometimes make notes to remember how I met this person or who they are to me. Sometimes I copy part of our last conversation to help me remember what we were talking about. I don't do this often, but it has been useful to differentiate SL "one night stands" vs. someone I helped in a group vs. a neighbor to my land vs. some random person who now wants to send me DJ requests to come to a club.

I think most mesh heads default to lips that are too full for me. Try taking both the fullness and thickness down little by little, and don't go under 20 for either. Taking the slider numbers too far from 50 may mess up how your lips will look, such as showing your teeth when you don't want them to show. You can also play with the lip width and corner of mouth curve to see what that does to your lip shape. I like to set lips for females at 60 to 65 for a slight smile, but for males 50 to 60 looks better. For makeup and skins, those that are made specifically for your mesh head will work best. You may be able to work with a smudgy eyeshadow from a BOM makeup layer that wasn't made for that head, but lipstick that doesn't match your lip outline will never look great. If you don't have lipstick made for your lips, check out Trend or other makeup stores for their group gifts, store credit gifts, and sales. Also try using the lipsticks in your Head HUD and lowing their opacity, so they blend softly onto the lip texture on your skin. For eyes on LeLeutka at least, I've found BOM layers go under applier layers, so you can blend eye makeup this way too. Lower the opacity of the applier layer to blend it softly onto your skin and BOM layers, or leave it at full opacity to get a stronger, sharper applier layer.